Sunday, November 22, 2009

Tot School

November 22, 2009

My camera battery died in the middle of tot school one day so some photos of just the activities were taken later in the week... like 5 minutes before I wrote this post. :)

ABCs and Pre-writing:

M is going through some anti-craft phase right now, and this includes the craft pages for our ABC book. He loves cutting and pasting for the collage pages though: So, apparently we will now have an ABC collage book. I’m hoping the craft pages will make an appearance again sometime soon, but I’m leaving this kind of thing totally up to M. Here are his Ll and Oo pages: (This was when the no-crafts discovery was made. M cut the letters out, but refused to do the rest, so yours truly did it in a futile attempt to get him interested.)

On a more positive note, he was totally into the tracing pages. We “read” his book together and then he practiced holding the dry-erase marker correctly and traced the letters:

We also did our cardstock letters and glass pebbles activity (both from Dollar Tree!): He loves this. It’s simply setting a letter out and then tracing it with the pebbles in the same way you would draw the letter (start at the top, go down, etc.).

For the very first time we had a sand tray to trace letters. I was hesitant to do this because I thought at some point M would just want to play in the sand, most likely getting his little cars involved. We had a little talk about how this is only for drawing letters, shapes, or numbers in, and he actually did pretty well. He did experiment with just doodling in it too, which was fine with me. We used this with our sand letter cards: He really did a great job.

We also matched up our Mama and Baby letters with these fun cards (Dollar Tree!):

He’s been playing quite often with a fishing game I made 2 years ago (he loved it then and still plays with it frequently) : The fish have letters on them and metal grommets for eyes. The fishing pole has a magnet on the end of the string to catch them. The chair, in case you were wondering, is M’s “fishing bridge” and the floor there? “Floaty Pond”. :) As opposed to other side of the room, which is “Sinky Pond”. Yep!

Pre-literacy Skills:

I have a subscription to an email full of free samples from Dover Publications. The email comes weekly and I always save a ton of things. One was these Opposites cards: M was very interested in this – of course he knew about opposites, but didn’t know the term for it. He enjoyed matching these up and I plan to print more for him soon. He would say “If it isn’t hot” (and grab the hot card), “then it’s cold!” (and match it to the cold one).

Fine Motor Skills:

He played with another I Spy Sensory Bin – I found some great new things to put in it for him – a little hammer, screwdriver, pliers, and saw – such cute and tiny things! We also used a variety of other things found around the house. I didn’t have a theme at all… but he loved it!

And a Curious George puzzle:

Large Motor Skills:

After reading about how important a workout of large muscles can be in a boy’s learning, we did our movement cards before a lot of the other work. M always enjoys this!

Leaping :)…

Math Skills:

I thought this would be a super-fun activity – connecting dots to make shapes: M was interested at first, but quickly moved on to something else. The idea for this was here.

I found some wooden tan grams at Michael’s ($1.00 – you should go now!) and printed a couple of puzzles for him:

Size sorting with Bob the Builder trucks (loved this activity and the next one, of course):

We have been reading some great Thanksgiving books and I told him the basics of the first Thanksgiving with this flannelboard set: He listened very well and then told Daddy the story later!

Life Skills:

This week we took the drawer locks off of M’s dresser drawers and he was given two new jobs – put his own clothes away after they are folded, and pick out his own clothes to wear each morning. He is loving this new-found freedom, such a big boy! And while the clothing choices are not ones I would’ve made, I’m very, very proud of him! And now I know that the red shirt is way too small and needs to be packed away. :)

Nature and Science:

We also had a class at our local nature center all about apples this week. M had so much fun taste testing and graphing his favorite apple, cutting an apple to see the star inside, and even squishing an apple to make cider! The children were all given their own apple seed and we went to a beautiful sunny field where they planted them. So much fun! I need to start including our nature center experiences in my tot school posts – we always learn so much there!

We are in a huge "anti-everything" stage here. Anna just wants to play-play-play and rejects everything remotely reminding her of school. I am impressed that you found ways to accommodate Matthew's interests without fighting with him.

Oh Nicole, you always do SUCH awesome things that it's hard to comment on only a few!! Love the pebbles and letters; I think Maddie would really enjoy that. Also, I just adore the picture of him leaping. Too cute!!!

And, I JUST realized that I never put out her art box that I lovingly put together... Rats! Next week. :)

I love the idea of putting pebbles on the letters! I am definately going to try that with Jordan. I have also been meaning to do a sand box with Jordan for tracing letters but have been afraid of the same things as you that he will want to put all his cars and little dump trucks in it. But I think I am going to give it try. Thanks for sharing your great week!

Oh, I am in such awe of all of your great activities... :) I also appreciate that you talk about what was a hit and what was a miss. You seem like a really great teacher - what a lucky son you have, to have a mom that is also a good teacher!

Crumpet got tired of the letter crafts too. We got stuck at L.. He likes to read through the book but doesn't want to finish it! We play that fishing game too. It's a great one. I'd forgotten about your movement board - I'll have to try that soon!

Selena is in such a school funk here, not really wanting to do anything but read, and crafts. She asks for Grandma's crafts everyday, but doesn't care about her workbooks right now. I guess we will just go with the flow and I will work the rest in as we can. I think this is just a sign of more growth realizing she can make things, and working on those finer motor skills, and the math skills that we haven't really pushed much on, since math usually comes later after the reading.

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About Me

I am a wife of 13 years and mother of two sons, ages 6 and brand new. We have a lot of fun learning and growing together. I share a bit of that here, and welcome you to follow us along our happy (but sometimes exhausting) little journey.
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